hehehehahahahaha!!!!

Ha!

You laugh, but those actually exist with Japan's Super Mario Bros. 2 and The Legend of Zelda's second quest.

(Okay so it's not EXACTLY like this, but close enough.)

So true. I'm supposed to write about this game and I'm totally uninspired. It's just...more of the same.

I'm happy to see a non-World of Warcraft comic from Mike! As for the game, how many of you in the Bitmob community agree with what reviewers have been saying (complaining) thus far about the game?

Eh, I'm pretty indifferent about a the idea it's more of the same. Granted I don't care for the series one way or the other. For the people that loved Crackdown, that probably isn't a horrible thing. I understand acritic's position and what a critic has to do. I also don't necessarily find that aspect of the criticism to be particuarly meaningful. That could be the best news to a person that just wants more Crackdown.

But that's actually how Super Mario Bros 2 is, in Japan anyway. Except it has zombie Mushrooms instead of zombie Goombas.

There was once a period of time when you could get by with a sequel that did more of the same if it just had a good gameplay hook and a couple tweaks. The Tony Hawks (back when they were hot stuff) come to mind. Hell, it works for sports games every year. (Yes, rosters -- I know.)

That said, with the open-world genre evolving so much in the last three years, Crackdown feels more like a repetitive grind. I keep waiting for it to break out. Aaron, I feel your pain.

As a person that played the first one and didn't find it remotely special (or that fun), what about the first one was a repetitive grind?  Not to discount the three years of other games (obviously they didn't release in a vaccum) but what of all this let down for this being what it is as oposed the first being nearly the same product is the first one having no expectations as "the pack-in when you bought the Hale 3 beta?" A lot of what I'm reading and listening to now as opposed to three years ago seems to be "we had sky-high expectations and this only turned out to be just an above average, mindlessly fun open-world game" as opposed to "we expected this to be crap and are excited to report it's an above average, mindlessly fun open world game."

I bought the first Crackdown for the Halo 3 beta, and then wrung what enjoyment I could out of the game.

I tried the Crackdown 2 demo, and any thoughts I had of buying the game melted. I might rent it, but for $60? No thank you.

Heh, thanks for making me smile.